Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

AURORA

I was burying my mother in a rented coffin.

Most of the accounts were frozen because of Roman's embezzlement claims. So I was forced to choose the pauper's package. Alfred and my mother were placed in rented coffins for the service. Immediately following, they'd be placed in cardboard boxes and buried.

Last night I had a nightmare. My mother was haunting me from the afterlife for burying her in a cheap box. Her ghost kept saying, over and over again, "What would people think?"

What would people think …

I twisted in my seat and looked around the empty salon.

Apparently not much.

All those friends my mother and Alfred had spent countless millions entertaining and trying to impress and not one of them showed up for the funeral. I glanced down at my phone. The headline in the Daily Mail was not helping.

Piano Protégé Pops Parents!

Now the world and everyone we knew thought I murdered my parents because, at least according to the Daily Mail , they'd interrupted my piano practice. Sigh.

It wasn't just my mother's callous friends. My own friends had stopped calling and checking on me, even Eleanor. I guessed it was bad business to be friends with a murder suspect when they were trying to get a job at Daddy's company or accepted at a highly esteemed university. I had even called my father who I hadn't talked to in over ten years to tell him the news. He could barely choke out an "I'm sorry for your loss." When I told him the bank accounts were frozen and I had no money, he pretended to have a bad connection and told me he'd call me back from a landline. He never called back.

I lowered my face into my palms.

How had everything gone so badly so quickly?

It was like my entire life unraveled in a matter of days. As if some unseen hand had just reached down from the heavens to squash me like a bug. The more I thought about the events over the last few weeks, the more confusing everything seemed.

There was just one common element among the chaos.

One unmovable force.

One catalyst.

Roman.

It all came back to him. All of it. The money. My parents' murder. Even me being kicked out of school. And yet, even knowing he was somehow involved, it still didn't make sense. It was insane to even think it. No man, no matter how rich, could have orchestrated all this destruction. He may be powerful, but he wasn't the omniscient puppet master I sometimes worked him up in my mind to be.

The cops said they had my fingerprints on the gun and there was evidence of gunshot residue on my hands. There was no way Roman could have known that I was going to break into his office that night. There was no way he could have planned for me to fire a gun at him, implicating myself in my parents' murder.

Was there?

And more important, even if there was, why?

Why would he do all this?

The funeral director cleared his throat. "Should we wait a few more minutes, miss?"

I forced my chin up and then nodded slowly. He grimaced and left the parlor.

It was pointless of course. I doubted anyone was coming, but I could give my mother at least that much. I still hadn't felt any grief at her passing. I was a monster for a daughter. I'd spent the last few days wandering the halls of their house, searching for some emotion. The closest I had come to tears was when my eyes stung from all the bleach and chemicals the professional cleaners used to sanitize the crime scene.

I wiped my palms on my upper thighs and smoothed out my black skirt before rising. I crossed to the coffins. Both lids were closed. I couldn't afford the cost of funeral makeup. My mother would rather die than appear in public without her face on . The corner of my mouth twisted at the macabre thought.

I stepped between the two parallel coffins and placed my hand on the cool polished surface of my mother's coffin. "I'm sorry, Meredith."

One of the funeral parlor doors swung open. I turned, eager to see who had come.

Roman strolled in.

He was elegantly dressed in a black suit, shirt, and tie. He looked like the devil himself strolling into heaven. Damn the man for being so outrageously handsome.

Anger gripped my chest. I struggled to fill my lungs with air as I turned back around and focused on my mother's coffin. I waited until he was standing behind me, not wanting to appear undignified by screaming across the funeral parlor. "What are you doing here?" I asked in a harsh whisper.

He placed a possessive hand on my lower back. "I'm here for you."

I stepped to the side, escaping his touch. "I don't need you."

I watched from the corner of my eye as Roman ran a hand down his already straight tie, smoothing it. He tilted his head back, exposing the strong sinews of his neck as he tightened the Windsor knot. "That is a very dangerous thing to say, baby girl. If I thought for one moment you were serious, I might be tempted to… arrange things … so that you did need me."

I blinked away the tears that had formed in my eyes as I tried to swallow past the sand in my throat. He had practically all but admitted he had been manipulating this entire situation. Had he also arranged for my parents to be killed? Why? It all came back to why?

Why? Why? Why?

I screamed the word over and over again in my head as I stroked the modest white rose arrangement placed on the top of her coffin. A single slightly brown bud fell off. I held it in the palm of my hand, staring at its marred perfection. Still, I didn't dare say the word out loud. I was worried that his response would shatter what little resolve I had left.

As if reading my mind, Roman stepped closer. He wrapped his hand around my waist and squeezed as he whispered in my ear, "Do you like butterflies?"

My lower lip trembled as I cupped a rose blossom in my palm. "Butterflies?"

His free hand pushed my hair back over my shoulder, caressing my neck with the backs of his knuckles. "I love to watch their beautiful jewel-colored wings shimmer as they flutter in the air."

His breath tickled my skin.

My head fell back onto his shoulder, drawn to the dark strength of his arms.

He flattened his palm over my midsection. "The problem with butterflies is they are too delicate, too innocent for this harsh world."

He slipped his hand between my legs and pressed.

I gasped as I reached down to pull his hand away.

"Don't," he commanded.

My hand fell away.

He slipped his hand lower, teasing my inner thigh as he pushed his fingers under my skirt.

My fingers curled as my nails scratched the surface of my mother's coffin. "Roman, stop. This is wrong."

Ignoring my plea, he pushed the silk fabric of my panties aside and slipped one finger along my slit. "Some butterflies are so beautiful they need to be protected."

He slipped a finger inside me.

Oh, God.

He leaned over and kissed the side of my neck. I could smell his cologne as his warm breath brought hints of mint and coffee. "Do you know what a killing jar is?"

I bit my lip to keep from moaning as he pulsed his finger in and out of my already wet pussy. "No," I breathed.

His other hand moved from my waist to grasp my breast. He teased the nipple through the fabric of my dress, pinching the hard nub. "It is a large glass jar that is used to trap beautiful butterflies."

He pressed his hips into my body from behind. The hard ridge of his cock was against my lower back.

I closed my eyes as my head rolled back and forth on his shoulder. He added a second finger.

He gently bit my earlobe. "Once the butterfly is inside, you add a cotton ball of ether, and wait for the imperceptible fumes to slowly embrace it."

I went up on my toes as he added a third finger. His hand left my breast to cover my mouth so I wouldn't make any sounds. I breathed rapidly through my nose as he whispered, "The butterfly flutters its wings one last time and dies."

My eyes widened. I jerked my body, trying to break his grasp.

He wrapped his arm across both my breasts and tightened it around my chest. His right hand continued to ruthlessly punish my pussy by pounding in and out with his fingers. The pad of his thumb circled my clit. "You see, baby girl, there would be no amusement, no adventure, in simply capturing the butterfly in your hands. You would ruin all the beautiful colors. They would wipe away like softly colored dust on your fingertips."

He lifted my body until my toes were barely scraping the floor. I was suspended within his arms. I could hear the pounding of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' through the heartbeat in my ears.

"The beauty is in coaxing the butterfly to flutter into your killing jar. Making her a part of her own demise."

A tear coursed down my cheek. "Please, let me go."

In response, he pinched my clit. The spasm of pain sent a shockwave of pleasure up my spine. I opened my mouth to cry out my orgasm as I tasted the salt of my tears on my lips.

He pulled his fingers free and forced them into my mouth. My tongue swiped over his skin, swallowing the shame of my own arousal. I choked and tried to breathe through my nose. He slipped his fingers out of my mouth and caressed my open lips with the tips.

He growled against the vulnerable skin of my neck just below my ear. "You don't understand. The point is never to let the butterfly go. You have trapped her at her most beautiful. She is now yours forever. To keep and protect."

He loosened his grasp.

I collapsed on top of my mother's coffin. My breath fogged the smooth glossy surface as I struggled to breathe in deep gasps of air.

The next thing I heard was the doors closing softly behind him.

I sank down onto the floor and stared at the forgotten crumbled rose blossom in my hand. There was no longer a doubt in my mind, I had to escape Roman's killing jar.